Bow for the tarpaulin of platform vehicles



June 22, 1943.

E. J DEISLEY BOW FOR THE TARPAULIN OF PLATFORM VEHICLES Filed May 15, 1940 Jvwwvtom Edward IDeisley Patented June 22, 1943 UNITED STATES TENT OFFICE BOW FOR THE TARPAULIN F PLATFORM VEHICLES vania Application May 15, 1940, Serial No. 335,203

1 Claim.

1 The present invention relates to bows for vehicle bodies.

More specifically, it relates to improvements in bows replacing the conventional bows of the all-wooden type and consists in making such bows partly of wood and partly of metal, in order to avoid certain difficulties inherent in allwood bows, such as the difiiculty of providing suitable lumber and of shaping it into the desired final form.

The present invention relates to making such bows preferably of three relatively short wooden members, connected by two sheet metal elbows 'or corner pieces. For example, a standard bow may be made of two substantially straight wooden end pieces, two curved metal connecting pieces or fittings and a single wooden top piece preferably of arcuate shape.

A clear understanding of the invention may be obtained from the present specification and the drawing accompanying the same, disclosing a preferred embodiment of such composite bow. In said drawings:

Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic elevation of a composite wood-and-metal bow embodying the invention;

Fig. 2 is an edgewise fragmentary elevation on an enlarged scale, showing one of the metal portions and the adjacent parts of the wooden pieces connected thereby;

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary side elevation corresponding to Fig. 2; and

Fig. 4 is a cross section through the bow on the plane indicated by the line 4-4 of Fig. 2.

In all the figures, corresponding elements are indicated by similar reference characters.

Referring first to Fig. l, 5 represents the upp r portion of a box-type vehicle body or the like, which carries sockets or brackets such as 6 at each side thereof to receive the vertical end portions of the bows. One of these bows is here shown as comprising the substantially straight Wooden end portions 1 and the arcuate or bowed wooden top member 8, with metal pieces or fittings 9 connecting the said wooden elements, preferably by making the metal pieces 9 as bent tubes of substantially rectangular cross section, into the ends of which the respective wooden elements are inserted and secured.

Having thus given an idea of the general structure, attention is now directed to Figs. 2, 3 and 4, which show in detail how the various parts of the bow coact with one another. It will be seen that the metal piece 9 preferably consists of two arcuately bent channel members It] and I I, one of which fits over the other, as shown in Fig. 4. In order to form a tubular member of these two interfitting channels, they are secured to one another in any desired way, preferably by spot welds such as are shown at I2, which are spaced sufficiently close together to provide the necessary strength and .rigidity.

The end piece I will be accommodated snugly within the lower end of the corresponding tubular member thus produced, which may have a substantially straight lower end portion of adequte length to receive the top of said end piece I. Bolts such as I3 and I4, here illustrated as of the carriage bolt type, may be employed to secure the wood and metal portions to one another, lock washers l5 and It, and nuts I! and I8, or equivalent fasteners, being provided to cooperate with said bolts I3 and I4.

It will be noted from Fig. 3 that the bolts I3 and I4 are not placed centrally or axially of the width of the wooden portion 1 but are staggered, so as to avoid cutting the same grain of the wood twice, and also to provide a more rigid connection due to the greater diagonal distance thus resulting between the bolts.

It is desirable, but not essential, to provide a stop for preventing the member I from entering too far into the metal tubular member, and such stop may be formed very simply and effectively by making a short transverse cut I9 at the appropriate location on the inner channel member II and then embossing or drawing a portion of the metal inward to form such stop as shown at 20.

To make it possible to weld the channel members I0 and II together, suitable elongated openings 2| may be provided at intervals in the web of the inner channel member II to admit a welding electrode, such openings 2| being placed in the vicinity of the desired welds I2. Since the openings are on the concave side of the bow, that is, in the inside of the same, the outer surface of the channel member I!) will remain smooth and free from perforations, so that the canvas cover or the like will not become caught or punctured at such holes, as might occur ifthe holes were in the outer surface of the bow.

At the upper end of the tubular metal piece or fitting the end of the curved wooden member B may be received in exactly the same way as the straight piece 'I. Here again the two carriage bolts l3 and I4 may be spaced apart diagonally and secured by means of lock washers I5 and I6 and nuts I! and I8, precisely like those already discussed. A transverse cut I9 and inwardly-embossed metal tongue 20 may also be provided, to insure the proper length of insertion of each end of the wooden piece 8 into the respective tubular member 9.

It should be noted that While the vertical wooden pieces I have been disclosed as straight and the wooden top pieces 8 as arcuately curved or bowed, these shapes are more or less arbitrary and by obvious slight changes, straight top members 8 and/or curved side pieces 1 could be substituted if desired or necessary for any specific purpose.

The number of spot welds provided in any given case is of course also arbitrary, but in general it will be preferred to provide an opening 2| adjacent each pair of such prospective welds to facilitate the manufacture. Moreover, although two carriage bolts with their cooperating nuts and lock washers have been disclosed at each woodmetal joint, obviously the number of such fastenings and their precise type are also arbitrary and depend upon considerations of strength and rigidity in any particular installation.

By providing such composite bows it will be noted that many advantages are attained. It is relatively difiicult and therefore expensive to secure sufficiently long pieces of Wood with adequately straight grain, and free from knots and blemishes, to make the conventional all-wood types of bows and there is furthermore considerable loss due to breakage or partial breakage in manufacture where short bends are necessary, such as are now replaced by th curved metal pieces 9. The wooden pieces I are merely relatively short and straight pieces of wood, and the bowed portions 8 are also relatively short pieces of wood and need not be bent sharply, hence are relatively easy to procure and shape,

Attention is called also to certain advantages of using two channel members to form the tubu-' lar metal portion or fitting, instead of making it initially of a single piece as a tube of rectangular section. It is much easier to bend such channels to the desired contour, for instance, by die stamping them from fiat sheet metal stock, prior to securing them to one another to form the finished tubes, since both surfaces of the metal are readily accessible to facilitate the forming operation. By placing the convex chanled with both its flanges extending over the flanges of the other channel, a smooth surface is presented to the canvas or other cover.

It will be noted that th end portions of the metal tubes are free from spot welds for a considerable distance and this gives a certain degree of yield to the ends, so that the wooden members may be clamped therebetween by tightening the carriage bolts without distorting the tubular cross section, as would be the case if the tube were made of a single piece, or rigidly welded to near its ends. Moreover, this yield at the end portions will permit suflieient expansion to accommodate wooden members I which are slightly over-sized, especially such as are somewhat too thick, and which would occasion much trouble with rigid tubes.

Another advantage of the present type of bow is that a single type and size of metal connecting piece will sufiice for a great variety of heights and widths of finished bows, by merely varying the wooden pieces employed. A further advantage is the fact that the present type of how may be stored or shipped in knocked-down condition, thus affording a great economy in storage space and transportation costs,

Having disclosed a preferred form of the invention, it will be understood that th disclosure is highly diagrammatic and that therefore many features may be modified, omitted or added without departing from the spirit of the invention.

The scope of the invention is therefore defined solely in the following claim.

I claim:

A fitting for connecting wooden members of a composite vehicle bow, said fitting comprising a hollow tubular structure of rectangular section formed of arcuate inner and outer sheet-metal channel members assembled with their respective flanges in snug overlapping relation, and their webs forming the concave and convex walls of the fitting, means rigidly securing said respective overlapping flanges together throughout the intermediate portion of the fitting, said flanges for a substantial distance from each end of the fitting being free and unsecured, so that the end portions of said channel members may spread apart to a limited extent, thus forming at the ends of the fitting yielding sockets into which the wooden bow members may be inserted, said fitting having in the region of such sockets clamping means engaging the webs of said channel members for drawing them together after the wooden members have been inserted.

EDWARD J. DEISLEY. 

